First of all, because it helps us keep self-control

[Mary Naeem]

By H.H. Pope Shenouda III

First of all, because it helps us keep self-control.


As the one fasting abstains from eating and drinking generally for a period of time, he stops himself from eating whatever relates to animal fat. And so he restraint. In the process of restraining from food and drink, he will also restrain himself from committing sins.

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God put this element of restrain from the beginning when He asked Adam and Eve to abstain from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Here, He put the principle of self-control. from the beginning of the history of humanity, to make us fully realise that freedom does not mean lack of restrain. Although God was very generous with Adam and Eve and gave them permission to eat from "every tree of the garden", but He put a rule, which was to refrain from eating from a particular tree (Gen 2:16,17) and (Gen 3:3).

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Maybe we fully realise here the seriousness of the phrase that King Solomon said, expressing his unrestrained pleasure: "Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them" (Eccles 2:10). So eventually he lost his wisdom and sinned. "His heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David" (1Kings 11:4). And many desires caused him to stumble…..

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